Babbling about books and plants.

Kew Gardens: Temperate House

Finally, the last batch of Kew pictures. I don’t think there will be that many, because I was getting tired by the time we got to the Temperate House that I was just taking random snapshots, so there weren’t many that were worth keeping, and even fewer that are worth posting – and before we’d even looked at all of it, it was closing time and we were shooed out.

After the downpour we’d had a bit earlier, the entire path to the Temperate House was one huge puddle, with the occasional little island. The water was ankle deep, so we really had no choice but to walk on the lawn.

It’s not so obvious in this picture, but the Temperate House is so big that it seems like you could put the entire Teeny Tiny Village Nursery inside it (and I’m pretty sure you could if you stacked our greenhouses on top of each other). Which should tell you how big the greenhouse is, or how small my workplace is, or maybe both.

One of many random snapshots, one of many excited squeaks:

Ivy: “Ooh, look, they’re doing air-layering!”

Libra: “They’re doing what?”

Cue long and excited explanation about what air layering is and how much fun it is and all the times I’ve done it…

Random snapshot: a pond and some koi and some greenery…

I have two versions of this picture, with and without Libra. It’s fun switching between the two, looks like she’s appearing out of thin air (or disappearing).

Random snapshot: some (tall) palm tree.

Ooh, look, it’s a dinosaur! Oh, no, wait…

… it’s only a tree fern.

Ooh, look, it’s a baby hedgehog! Oh, no, wait…

It’s only a Banksia.

Can you tell I was getting a little tired and, therefore, silly by then? Although the silly has never worn off, I still tell everyone it’s a hedgehog tree when we look at the pictures. And last week, when I visited my father, we went to the (disappointing) botanical garden in his town, where I again couldn’t help squeaking, “It’s a hedgehog tree! It’s a hedgehog tree!”

Ooh, look, it’s the crazy thing that we found in the attic!

Last autumn, getting some supplies down from the attic at the TTVN, the boss’s wife and I found a strange object… we could tell it was some sort of seedhead, but not from what plant. It cracked me up, because it looked like a stick full of talking mouths. I’m pretty sure we made a lot of jokes about it, but I can’t remember what they were.

Anyway, seeing the mysterious seedhead pictured on a sign next to the “hedgehog tree” caused another excited squeak.

Baby’s tears (Soleirolia soleirolii) were everywhere, forming lush green carpets on the ground (all my pictures turned out blurry), on the trunks of the tree ferns, even under the metal floor grates.

Blooming palm tree, seen from the gallery.

“It’s like a forest, only indoors,” must have been one of the first things I said after we entered the Temperate House. It was quiet, cool and full of trees – it reallyfelt very forest-like.

On the other hand, I had this moment up on the gallery when I thought, “this feels like a ship” – the metal floor and railings suddenly reminded me of the many times we’ve taken a ferry to Sardinia.

For once, my camera could be persuaded to take a decent picture through the glass of the greenhouse wall. Those were the parts of the Temperate House we didn’t get to explore, because when we came down from the gallery, an employee was locking the doors and ushering the last visitors out.

Such a pretty building…

Made me think… quite apart from the fact that it would be ridiculously expensive to have something like that built, and modern greenhouses are of course far better insulated, and you can have automatic shading and vents and whatnot… but if you wanted to have something like that built, and could afford it, I bet it would be very hard to find someone who knows how to do it!

Oh, but I want to know what is in there! Can’t I go there again?

Hm, what will I post about tomorrow, now that I’m all done with my holiday pictures?